How come the beheaded South Korean hostage doesn't get a thread?

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Guess there's not much to say about it. It's a sad commentary when the beheading of hostages passes without comment.

― Debito (Debito), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Cultural elitism, innit. South Koreans are only worth about 0.17 American.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Also it was talked about on another thread.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I hate when people say "how come" instead of "why"

(also, doesn't it have a thread about it now? start one yourself instead of complaining)

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, aren't you little-miss-stick-up-your-ass-pushing-bile-out-your-mouth today.

How come?

― Debito (Debito), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:42 (twenty-one years ago)

because you are being a big loser.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think ILE can be accused of cultural elitism - most of the political threads and posts are very much critical of U.S. policy, and shy away from sweeping terminology.

Actually, Kim Sun-il's murder was front page news in the U.S. - as were his heartwrenching pleas for his life. I agree that many Americans value U.S. losses over any other losses - that's why a convoy that contains "foreign workers" that is bombed - killing everyone - is different from "three U.S. workers killed with two foreign workers."
The U.S. Senate just voted against media being able to take pictures of flag draped coffins returning on airplanes. Because that would be too disturbing for people to see, and would demoralize the troops.
But I saw pictures of this desperate man pleading for his life on the front page of several newspapers.
I am heartbroken about this - but I must say, it certainly changes the debate, in my mind, about who is winning the war on terrorism.

― aimurchie, Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:43 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah the title should've been "Why the beheaded South Korean hostage doesn't get a thread?"

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, I'm sorry. Is using 'how come' an indication of loserdom?

If you have a problem with the assumptions that underlie this thread, go ahead and talk about them.

― Debito (Debito), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:46 (twenty-one years ago)

You know, fuck off.

I think that "y" in yeah should have been capitalized.

― Debito (Debito), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I think oops was sort of on your side there.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I think so too.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Using Kim Sun-il's murder for provocation - and calling him "the beheaded South Korean" - is pretty crap as well. This, however:" Wow, aren't you little-miss-stick-up-your-ass-pushing-bile-out-your-mouth today." is just beyond the pale when it comes to the point you were trying to make.
"Everyone on ILE is a smug racist! I'll prove it by referring to people only by their race and trying to demean a woman!".
Grow up.

― aimurchie, Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:54 (twenty-one years ago)

what aimurchie said.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 04:56 (twenty-one years ago)

it's a sad commentary when the beheading of hostages passes without comment

well, nothing we say on these threads can prevent beheadings or cause them. and furthermore there is very little that nations can do - on the time frame of ile discussions, anyway - to prevent beheadings.

in fact, i think the quiet on the iraq/terror-related threads is sort of an extended ile-wide comment on the sad state of the commentary in those threads. maybe people have reached the point of "this is just sad / let's not say angry shit to each other"

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, aren't you little-miss-stick-up-your-ass-pushing-bile-out-your-mouth today.

Yeah because after midnight I turn into Jess.

Also, Oops's suggestion would've been a statement, not a question.

Overall Debito (?) think (and look) before you post.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:01 (twenty-one years ago)

haha the last bit of my post is sort of moot now, isn't it?

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, Oops's suggestion would've been a statement, not a question.

the fact that it didn't work with "why" instead of "how come" was the joke.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm, but it wasn't a joke. Just another error on top of an error.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

No, it was a joke. Think before you post.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:04 (twenty-one years ago)

PUPPIES! PLUR! ICE CREAM!

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:05 (twenty-one years ago)

we should probably just get back to calling each other insensitive racists.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Well it wasn't a good one then.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Given a choice, I really prefer "little-miss-stick-up-your-ass-pushing-bile-out-your-mouth" to "insensitive racist". If I were to have a choice, having been called neither.

― aimurchie, Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm sorry you feel that way, Sam. Thank you for voicing your opinion.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyway, none of this is dignifying the death of Kim Sun-il. I posted on another thread that it would be preferable to be bombed than to be tortured with the idea of your own life weighing the balance of international politics.
It was not more than 50 years ago when the U.S, saw its last lynching - and lynchings were against desegragation - not international policy. The civil rights war. Which might aptly have been called a war against terrorism.

― aimurchie, Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:38 (twenty-one years ago)

For the record, I wasn't accusing ILx of cultural elitism. It was a statement about the hierarchy uwed by 'the West' to determine how important people are based on their nationality.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:40 (twenty-one years ago)

the irony of this situation is that it was an south korean man "working" for a US company in iraq. now not only are americans getting kidnapped and beheaded but so are the folx that halliburton is outsourcing jobs to.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:44 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost

like how 13 at Columbine is far more awful than, say, 250,000 in Rwanda

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Yep.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Looking towards this thread or the board in general to make a fitting tribute to this person is not a wise move. I don't think there's much that can be said on an internet message board where none of the posters know the man or his family that would dignify his death, other than RIP. I can't speak for others, but that's why I never would start a thread about it.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:50 (twenty-one years ago)

As that old newsroom axiom has it,
1 dead american = 10 dead israelis = 100 dead Indians = 1000 dead Africans
xp

― Symplistic (shmuel), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:50 (twenty-one years ago)

How does that axiom look in a African newsroom?

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:51 (twenty-one years ago)

These days, probably exactly the same.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:52 (twenty-one years ago)

actually i think part of the point of that axiom is that in places like africa dead people isn't news.

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:52 (twenty-one years ago)

i should retract "places like africa" and say something like "places like sudan"

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah. Countries go thus [e.g.]: New York, California, Germany, Africa

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:55 (twenty-one years ago)

it's all relative of course. in many other countries people are used to the horrors of violence and famine in their everyday lives. over here we are shocked and saddened by some blonde teenager getting kidnapped from her home and we'll drive the story into the ground, while we don't even recognize how lucky we are, perhaps at the expense of others around the world to some degree. This country has been blessed with a substantial lack of large-scale horrors (aside from 9/11) and that makes us lose perspective, I think.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:56 (twenty-one years ago)

It's human nature to place more emphasis on the lives of people who most closely resemble you. Compound this with the fact that deaths are less common in Western countries than in many parts of Africa.

xpost otm

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:58 (twenty-one years ago)

the angle i was kind of pushing is that in places like sudan people don't really have the luxury of sitting around on the couch and watching the news about the blond teenager getting kidnapped as though it were a particularly exciting movie or whatever. there's civil wars going on. they listen to the news and it tells them about troop deployments or to flee the village or to arm up or whatever. it's not "news entertainment" the way it is for us, so these calculuses of "1 dead of us" = "x dead of them" doesn't apply in the same way.

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 06:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah it does. I'm in Australia, and one American is still worth about 50 New Zealanders, or 1,000 Indonesians.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 06:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I see your point about northern African nations though.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 06:05 (twenty-one years ago)

sam, all your posts are mean nowadays.

― Sir Chaki McBeer III (chaki), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 06:10 (twenty-one years ago)

The television will not be revolutionized.

― aimurchie, Wednesday, 23 June 2004 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I dunno, how come these people don't get a thread?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 12:45 (twenty-one years ago)

"get a thread"

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i should retract "places like africa" and say something like "places like sudan"

I wonder why even the most international-focussed news outlets in the US are completely ignoring what's going on in Sudan. It's probably difficult to get correspondents there, but still, a lot of the other African conflicts over the past decade have had more comprehensive reportage, even Rwanda did.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

over here we are shocked and saddened by some blonde teenager getting kidnapped from her home and we'll drive the story into the ground

Newspapers don't hold focus groups to decide which stories go on the front page -- yet. But they are businesses, and therefore cannot completely ignore what their readers want to read.

― j.lu (j.lu), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 13:42 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven years pass...

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A2au2VOCMAAmfHQ.jpg

― christmas capybara (nakhchivan), Thursday, 14 January 2016 01:50 (ten years ago)

Not a big coffee fan here.

― markers, Thursday, 14 January 2016 04:22 (ten years ago)

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